I cannot tell you how fast we were going. Let me just say, at that rate of travel, having that massive wing became essential. This, in a city where you aren’t even going fast enough to be able to trigger cruise control, should serve as a good hint about what this BMW M2 Competition is like. Oh, and all of this transpired in the middle of the most intense downpour you can imagine. I’ve rarely been more afraid in my life.
This four-wheeled equivalent of a hi-vis vest is not your regular M2 Competition — if there can ever be such a thing in the first place. It was built as a track-only car, and therefore taken to the extremes of its performance through output, weight and dynamics, and later toned down just a wee bit since its owner likes to ‘daily’ it, as they say these days. Its journey from a stock F87 M2 Competition to where it is today was single-handedly the work of KIKShift, a Mumbai-based customisation and performance outfit which, some of you may know, doesn’t limit its ambitions to the confines of its workshop. It was also rather convenient that Imran Majid, an accomplished driver and co-founder of KIKShift, happens to own this particular car. This shows especially in the level of obsession with which this car was built.
It’s for this reason that I kept prolonging actually driving this car, even though Imran, who I have a few old friends in common with, handed over its keys to me the very moment we met. On most days, I don’t consider myself a good enough driver, but on this particularly drizzly night, I felt grossly inadequate. This, you see, is already a rather highly regarded performance coupe of this era — that produces to the tune of 700 horsepower at the crank. That’s roughly 300 more than stock. In track guise, it was built to an even more unforgiving spec, but honestly, I’m simply not experienced enough to be able to see this car as anything less than properly hardcore. I was grateful it still had its co-driver’s seat in place, and that’s the one I took at first.
As we made our way to Mumbai’s new network of much-needed first-world roads, it took little provocation for Imran to reel off bits about the car. Evidently, it has a pair of P800 turbochargers, upgraded injectors (this was a bit inventive, but I’m not supposed to tell you), a CSF cooling kit and a full-system exhaust that originally led to a custom-made outlet carved into the rear bumper (you’ll spot two massive cavities in the rear shots) but which now ends in stock end-cans for street use. Today’s generation of cars naturally lend themselves rather effortlessly to software tune-ups and KIKShift made the most of it with this M2, given its expertise in the matter, with a custom UNP tune. Just so you know, Imran’s other car is an R35 Nissan GT-R nicknamed ‘WildChild’ and this may have something to do with it being India’s fastest drag-spec car. I think it produces somewhere in the region of 1100 bhp and Imran is nowhere close to being done with pushing the envelope with it. The number he’s aiming for next is, let’s just say, unprintable.
Of course, all that power in the M2 (let’s forget about that GT-R for a while, okay?) would be an awful waste if it wasn’t laid down judiciously and, hence, it’s kitted out with KW race suspension, among the world’s most reputable suspension manufacturers with a serious motorsport imprint to their credit. The brakes are from AP Racing complemented with custom-built brake cooling ducts, the wheels are from Apex and with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S tyres, what you get is an M2 Competition you could casually set a few fast laps on at your neighbourhood racetrack while on your way to work. But, if you’ve figured a thing or two about Imran and KIKShift by now, you’ll know even this wasn’t good enough.
The answer? Carbon fibre. Lots of it. The bonnet’s carbon fibre. So are the front wide-body bumper and fenders. The boot? Of course. And hey, so is the M Performance roof. That the GT wing is carbon fibre as well needn’t be mentioned, right? Fortunately, since it’s no longer a track-only car, most of the cabin is bone stock, and I was rather happy to be driven around town at midnight, something I do myself on most days. As if to underline the comedy of the moment, we were even in ‘efficiency’ mode, where it (minus the evidently firm suspension behaviour) felt like a perfectly ‘normal’ car to be in. On duality alone, this M2 is just so staggeringly impressive. And then there’s the small matter of how incredibly fast it is.
In Sport+ mode, this car launches with a fishtail so wild, it’ll put MX bikes to shame. By the time you’ve clenched your teeth, you’ll find yourself shooting brazenly past the 200-kph mark and, even then, this M2 Comp is only about halfway through delivering its punches. Amazingly, even against the odds of a torrential downpour, it felt perfectly planted, although I strongly believe this was also down to how spectacularly Imran, who has an elephantine appetite for power, handles it. Given enough room (and not a lot of it, from what I’ve heard), it’ll get you to the other side of 300 kph, but fortunately, I wasn’t about to witness it first-hand.
At some point, I felt brave enough to ask to drive it and, I have to say, I’m so glad I did. See, I’m not much of a car guy in a contemporary sense, but I do maintain a small ‘best steering ever’ list. This list is primarily made up of cars such as the Ferrari F430 Scuderia and the older-gen Mini Cooper S and, I think, this M2 Competition sits squarely between the two. It isn’t as toy car-ish as the Mini and neither as singularly track-oriented as the Ferrari, but at any given point, you know exactly what’s going on at its contact patches. Even at a crawl, and in the mildest of its driving modes, it felt brilliant to drive and as Imran took me up the ladder through all of its modes and settings, the feedback only got sharper and more fun.
Here’s a dense, compact, brutal sports coupe that’s as close to a racecar as it can get without having to lose its registration plates. Through every step of its drive modes, the throttle response gets sharper and the power delivery more intense. It’s not a car you can take lightly because it’s built with a serious degree of focus, by a team of experts who live a life committed to taking cars to unprecedented extremes. Cars like these, then, deserve drivers who can keep up with that commitment, backed by a wafer-thin concept of fear. Since I score low on either count, I’ll sail through the remainder of my life without ever wanting to drive one again. Not all great cars are meant to be loved, after all. Some, you’re just meant to be very, very afraid of.
